Wayne Bath, 38, who has been found guilty of conspiring to breach immigration law. Picture: National Crime Agency/ PA Wire

The White Scanner picked up 18 migrants from France - including two children aged 16 and 17 and a woman.

On the return journey, they ran out of fuel and the migrants were forced to start baling out as the vessel flooded with sea water.

The terrified group sent desperate text messages, with one saying: ‘We are in England, tell police, we are drowning.’

The Coastguard helicopter and RNLI launched a rescue operation and found the inflatable vessel.

Sabah Dulaj, 23, who has been found guilty of conspiring to breach immigration law. Picture: National Crime Agency/ PA Wire

The woman was suffering from hypothermia and was wrapped in a blanket in an attempt to warm her up.

The Old Bailey heard that the Antares had tried to rescue its sister boat but was later found abandoned out to sea.

A Mitsubishi Shogun used to tow it had been abandoned and set on fire.

In July 2016, the White Scanner two-man crew of Mark Stribling, 35, from Farningham, Kent, and Robert Stilwell, 33, from Dartford, Kent, were jailed.

Undeterred, the gang bought another larger boat from Southampton - referred to as The Boat With No Name.

NCA operatives planted a bug on the boat to listen in as the gang plotted their next migrant run.

On July 25, Albert Letchford took out the Boat With No Name but ran into rough sea and turned back.

On August 13, the NCA secretly filmed a meeting of the Kent gang and their Albanian partners in a pub car park.

They went together to buy a jet-ski with a view to using it to transport migrants from France to Britain.

The NCA moved in to arrest them over safety fears if the jet-ski was brought into use.

The ringleaders were 40-stone Leonard Powell, 66, from Dartford, and his son Alfie, 39, of no fixed address.

Another son, George Powell, 42, from Farningham, in Kent, had already admitted his part in the conspiracy.

Following a trial, Leonard and Alfie Powell were found guilty of conspiring to breach immigration law along with Wayne Bath, 39, of Sheerness, Kent; Sabah Dulaj, 24, of south-east London; Albert Letchford, 42, of Dartford; and Artur Nutaj, 39, of north London.

Alan Viles, 28, of Folkestone, Kent and Francis Wade, 59, of Rochester, Kent were found not guilty after a jury deliberated for 29 hours.

NCA regional head of investigations Brendan Foreman said: ‘These men were involved in a staggeringly reckless plot to bring migrants to the UK illegally and in a highly dangerous manner.

‘They were prepared to risk lives for the sake of profit, treating people as a commodity to ship across the world's busiest shipping lane using small boats and even a jet-ski.

‘Were it not for the intervention of the NCA, Border Force and other agencies involved in this operation, including the Coastguard and RNLI, I am certain there would have been tragic consequences.’

NCA senior investigator Mark McCormack said: ‘When the Boat With No Name crossed the English Channel, a number of times it crossed the traffic, it did circular pirouettes and was under the bow of a number of container ships.

‘They were rescued in the vicinity of a large container ship that was bearing in on it.’

He cast doubt on the jet-ski plan, saying: ‘A three-person jet ski does have a range of 60 miles but it is the ability to get over there and potentially refuel and come back and cross in that type of vessel in the busiest shipping channel in the world.’

While jet-skis have been used to smuggle drugs and contraband from North Africa to Spain or Gibraltar, it has never before been attempted in the English Channel.

Judge Mark Dennis QC adjourned sentencing until a date to be fixed.

Albert Letchford, 42, who has been found guilty of conspiring to breach immigration law. Picture: National Crime Agency/ PA Wire

Artur Nutaj, 39, who has been found guilty of conspiring to breach immigration law. Picture: National Crime Agency/ PA Wire